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Looks great. I have a huge lot of Dystopian Wars stuff, I shall post some pics too once I get to painting it.
Getting into Dystopian Legions too. Who doesn't want some jetpack samurai to go along with the mechanical squids and walking buildings?

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Looks great. I have a huge lot of Dystopian Wars stuff, I shall post some pics too once I get to painting it.
Getting into Dystopian Legions too. Who doesn't want some jetpack samurai to go along with the mechanical squids and walking buildings?

How's Dystopian Legions play? The models look ace, but don't know anyone whose actually played it.

I've been playing Dystopian Legions since it's release, and I've been really enjoying it.

I got really bored of 40k after playing it for 14 years, so I was on a path looking for a platoon-company level game to replace it. I did not like Warmachine, and thought that while Dust had promise with the suppression mechanic it just didn't attract me.
I also played a number of skirmish games but that level of games just doesn't appeal to me.

I find that Dystopian Legions has a good blend of streamlined mechanics and the command and control leadership structure enabling a greater strategic control over a game than its competitors.

The full rules have very recently been released as a free downloadable PDF from Spartan Games download site, so you are welcome to download them and read through them yourself. I'll go into some general aspects on how the game functions and some of why I like it. The Army Lists are also available there. They are the ones for this edition, but new updated and rebalanced ones should be going up soon.

http://www.spartangames.co.uk/resources/downloads

If you ever drive 4 hours north to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I'd happily meet up to show off the game. I have a significant force for all the original four factions and all of the French models currently available.

First of all it is an alternating activation turn structure, so it has a lot of player interaction with actions and reactions inherent in the activation order.

The dice mechanic at its face appears to be more similar to Dusts. You create a pool of dice based on the weapons being used in an attack. Then you roll the dice and count the number of successes. Generally a 4+ counts as a success except some weapons use Blue Dice where the 6's count as two successes and a few weapons use Red Dice which uses the exploding mechanic from Spartans naval games so you can roll an additional dice for every Red 6 rolled.
Then you compare the number of dice to the targets Injury Rating (IR), and for every multiple of the IR you cause a wound.

The IR generally represents a combination of evasiveness, armor, and constitution. There are some abilities that give a +/- 1 to hit representing factors affecting the attackers. This means that the results of any action generally is known from a single roll, although the mechanic has a complex random distribution that actually makes the probabilities relatively similar to GWs Hit/Wound/Save mechanic...
That said, a few models have shields and cover works as a defensive pool of dice that reduces the number of successes rolled against the section.


Unlike many of the other games outside of historical brigade level games a significant mechanic in the game is the Leadership structure, and using Officers and NCOs to maintain morale and issue orders to enhance specific actions, but a much more realistic form than Warmachine employs.

Morale Checks are common, but both NCOs and Officers can choose whether or not to boost the roll to help keep control.
Also, there are a number of generic, factional, or character specific that any Officer or NCO can issue as long as they have enough command ability remaining for the turn.

I have picked up DL more recently, having come from many years of Warmachine and other GW games. DL hits a good balance for me between skirmish and large scale, while making a game that can be played in a timely manner.

The models are pretty good, though the scale and sculpting is, in some cases, difficult to paint or convert. They are predominantly metal models, and offer a great diversity of inspiration from historical to downright sci-fi. All of this is set in a real-world alternate history, so you have a wealth of options for terrain and narrative play.

Things I love:
- Alternating "simultaneous" play. You're always playing, and there is no wiping an army off the table before they get to play.
- Rich source for fluff with a fleshed out world with conflict in all theatres of war
- Excellent command resource management mechanic
- Excellent streamlined dice mechanic that keeps the game moving
- The game scales beautifully into larger campaigns and is playable from 700 - 3500 points
- Orders are awesome and ensure that characters all feel unique
- Killing a commanding officer DOES NOT end the game, nor is it lights out

Things I don't love:
- Manual, while much better organized than V1.0, they both have a lot of ambiguity to the rules - not in key areas, but some practical instructions for play is completely absent
- Armies are not fully flushed out yet, making it largely an infantry game, though there are some sweet cavalry models.
- Command takes some time to figure out, it is subtle, but key.

General comments:
- It is not a competition system, the rules and guidelines are too fluid on its own. This means an organizer would be more likely to run campaigns or larger narratives, or need to publish a comprehensive list of rules in play or not in play.
- The community is small at the moment, but will hopefully gain a following with time.
- Due to the nature of victory conditions in the game, it is refreshing to play a game that does not require annihilation or "hitting harder" to determine the victor. It feels more strategic the more sections you have on the table.

I've had lots of fun with DW, though they've really only been using the ship elements from the (older) fleet boxes. Loved painting the Japanese ships, less so the American ones - not sure why. Maybe just being so close to the waterline? I'll post pics up if I get the chance.

 Jlav wrote:
I have picked up DL more recently, having come from many years of Warmachine and other GW games. DL hits a good balance for me between skirmish and large scale, while making a game that can be played in a timely manner.

The models are pretty good, though the scale and sculpting is, in some cases, difficult to paint or convert. They are predominantly metal models, and offer a great diversity of inspiration from historical to downright sci-fi. All of this is set in a real-world alternate history, so you have a wealth of options for terrain and narrative play.

Things I love:
- Alternating "simultaneous" play. You're always playing, and there is no wiping an army off the table before they get to play.
- Rich source for fluff with a fleshed out world with conflict in all theatres of war
- Excellent command resource management mechanic
- Excellent streamlined dice mechanic that keeps the game moving
- The game scales beautifully into larger campaigns and is playable from 700 - 3500 points
- Orders are awesome and ensure that characters all feel unique
- Killing a commanding officer DOES NOT end the game, nor is it lights out

Things I don't love:
- Manual, while much better organized than V1.0, they both have a lot of ambiguity to the rules - not in key areas, but some practical instructions for play is completely absent
- Armies are not fully flushed out yet, making it largely an infantry game, though there are some sweet cavalry models.
- Command takes some time to figure out, it is subtle, but key.

General comments:
- It is not a competition system, the rules and guidelines are too fluid on its own. This means an organizer would be more likely to run campaigns or larger narratives, or need to publish a comprehensive list of rules in play or not in play.
- The community is small at the moment, but will hopefully gain a following with time.
- Due to the nature of victory conditions in the game, it is refreshing to play a game that does not require annihilation or "hitting harder" to determine the victor. It feels more strategic the more sections you have on the table.

All I'd really have to comment on is your statement that the game is playable from 700-3500 points... Really that 3500 point limit you state is just generally the size of a full platoon. I don't think that's actually the size limit of a game. I know my friends and I look forward to expanding our games to 2 platoons. I really don't think they'll be significantly more complicated or longer than any 40k game with a full Force Organization chart. It would consist of 6 mainstay infantry units, up to 6 officers/characters with some command sections, and 12 sections that can be an assortment of Elite/Support.

Sweet! My comment was inteded to show a breadth of size, that the game can be equally played small scale, or very large scale.

Well I have a small french fleet, painted around 70% and ive never actually got to play a match because nobody plays it around where i live ;__; but heres some models:

Just some random images to bring this thread back to life. Post your own and any questions or thoughts or heck any AARs as well!

This is my newest painting project for Dystopian Wars. Russian Coalition Kostroma Fleet Carrier. About 25%done right now. Anyone else still painting and playing?

Do people more often play in water in Dystopian Wars?

 RexInvictus wrote:
Do people more often play in water in Dystopian Wars?

From what I've seen yes. Here where I am, it is 95% water based matches. Air is always around though.

Saw these models at the ol' FLGS the other day and I gotta say they really captured my imagination. Of course - the only reason I was in there is that I'm starting to get back into 40k - but if I were to try a different game it'd be this.

I always wished I'd gotten in to BFG when it was around, this looks to have an even cooler aesthetic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also - is Spartan games a really small outfit? After seeing how many models they produced and different lines of games I was surprised to find that the only community appears to be really small. Not even a sub forum on Dakkadakka!

They're Medium sized, it's just that they managed to get a media businessman somewhere inside the company that knows how to negotiate these big deals.

Part of the reason why certain companies get these AAA licenses is that they're actually getting the license through a 2nd party, usually a merchandising corporation like Topps or whatever corp the license was sold to. That's how the Clix games gets licenses for everything under the sun.

On the darker side, this might actually accelerate Spartan's cycle of game abandonment since those licenses are notoriously fickle.

And the main way Spartan has gotten this much stuff out is they abandon things at the drop of a hat.

I do believe the abandoned games and such is a thing of the past. I've been playing Dystopian Wars for over a year now and the released have been pretty good. The bombardment groups were last, and now the big robots are coming. Should be interesting to see how they fit in.